Specialized push-button telephone for blind users

Dear friends!

As we have already reported, our project has grown into a new one —
“Ukrainian Speech Synthesizer for Blind Apple Users.”

We are happy to share the results of our work with you. Our project to adapt Ukrainian voices for RHVoice has reached the stage where we have submitted the application to the App Store for review. So we hope that a high-quality Ukrainian voice will soon become available to the general public.

Why did we choose RHVoice, how did we come up with this idea, and why the iPhone?

The decision was not an easy one, because each platform has its advantages. Android is a flexible system that can be customized extensively. The iPhone, on the other hand, offers a high level of accessibility for blind users. And each platform has its supporters.

We read many reviews and listened to quite a few podcasts.

One serious drawback was a major obstacle: the iPhone did not have a Ukrainian voice.

It appeared on Android fairly quickly, but not on the iPhone.

We collected signatures and contacted Apple repeatedly — and then a miracle happened: they created the “Lesya” voice, which promised to be quite high-quality. But for reasons that remain unclear, it turned out to have quite a few shortcomings that made it less useful for everyday work.

What blind users actually value

Blind people use different voices, and everyone has their own preferences. We have a great ability to adapt and become accustomed to different voices. A person begins to perceive as “normal” the voice they are used to and is not always eager to switch to something new.

But clarity, speed, and reliability are always highly valued for everyday work. When you listen to a voice for six or eight hours a day, its clarity and speed become crucial.

Why RHVoice?

Speed and clarity were high, while the voice still sounded more natural, because not everyone is willing to listen to a robot.

After experimenting and trying different options, I settled on RHVoice.

The hardest part — getting into the Apple ecosystem

And here we discovered that releasing it for Apple’s operating system was not so simple. But thanks to modern artificial intelligence capabilities, we were able to find what was needed and make the voice integrate with VoiceOver and actually speak.

We hope that very soon blind iPhone users will be able to install the RHVoice voice on their devices.

What’s next?

We continue working to improve RHVoice’s ability to pronounce the Ukrainian language, and we have already achieved a lot.

We have also launched the process of creating a new, high-quality voice and hope to add it to the existing voices soon.

Yes, from time to time various other speech synthesizers appear, and some of them are quite good. But for the everyday work of a blind user, RHVoice remains the most convenient tool for now.

We are happy that we are able to give people the opportunity to use their phones comfortably.